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Students’ attitudes towards social media and the relationship with their intention to engage in cyberbullying and other risky internet behaviours
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Type
Thesis
Author
Quek, Chin Joo
Supervisor
Goh, Jonathan
Intan Azura Mokhtar
Abstract
The Internet has become an important part of people’s life since its inception and more and more people are using it to perform business transactions, communicate with their friends, and seek out entertainment. With the introduction of Social Media platforms such as social-networking sites, weblogs, and content sharing sites, young people, especially students, are becoming more active because of the convenience these platforms offer with which they can connect to their friends easily and to exhibit their creativity. Unfortunately in parallel with these benefits, some are also engaging in undesirable behaviours such as cyberbullying and risky Internet behaviours. This has prompted researchers to try to explore and understand these phenomena. However so far, the emphasis has largely been placed on profiling the students who engage in such behaviours and not enough placed on students’ attitudes and motivations. There have been conjectures about what makes students behave this way; some have postulated that it is because of students' perceived anonymity in cyberspace, others have posited that it is because of their perception that the Internet is not regulated and so on.
The aim of this study is to investigate students’ attitudes towards Social Media. More specifically, the five characteristics of Social Media which include Anonymity, No Regulation, Lack of Physical Cues, Effect of Audience, and Freedom of Expression in cyberspace. Also of interests to this study are the relationships between students’ perceptions along the five characteristics of Social Media and their Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours and Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours. The study started with six focus group discussions involving a total of 34 students aimed at gleaning insights into the students’ attitudes and behaviours on Social Media. This was followed by an analysis of the contents on the Facebook walls of 472 students to see what students posted and how they interacted with each other on the platform. These two steps contributed towards the design of three rating scales designed to assess students’ Attitudes towards Social Media, Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours, and Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours. A total of 407 students in a local polytechnic were surveyed in this main part of the study.
The results show that students’ Attitudes towards Social Media is significantly correlated both to their Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours and their Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours. However, the characteristic of Anonymity is not correlated to their Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours and only weakly correlated to their Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours contradicting what was usually reported in the literature. The characteristic that has the strongest correlation to their intentions is the Lack of Physical Cues. It was also found that while boys and girls do not differ significantly in their intentions to engage in cyberbullying behaviours, boys are significantly more likely to engage in risky Internet behaviours and are more likely to be victims of cyberbullying behaviours. The results from the main study, together with their responses to questions in the focus group discussions highlighted students’ empathy towards others’ feelings and “face”. On top of that, they were also afraid to post anything that could trigger backlash from other users in cyberspace. It appears that cultural considerations have a big impact on students’ attitudes and behaviours in cyberspace.
The aim of this study is to investigate students’ attitudes towards Social Media. More specifically, the five characteristics of Social Media which include Anonymity, No Regulation, Lack of Physical Cues, Effect of Audience, and Freedom of Expression in cyberspace. Also of interests to this study are the relationships between students’ perceptions along the five characteristics of Social Media and their Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours and Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours. The study started with six focus group discussions involving a total of 34 students aimed at gleaning insights into the students’ attitudes and behaviours on Social Media. This was followed by an analysis of the contents on the Facebook walls of 472 students to see what students posted and how they interacted with each other on the platform. These two steps contributed towards the design of three rating scales designed to assess students’ Attitudes towards Social Media, Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours, and Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours. A total of 407 students in a local polytechnic were surveyed in this main part of the study.
The results show that students’ Attitudes towards Social Media is significantly correlated both to their Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours and their Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours. However, the characteristic of Anonymity is not correlated to their Intentions to Engage in Cyberbullying Behaviours and only weakly correlated to their Intentions to Engage in Risky Internet Behaviours contradicting what was usually reported in the literature. The characteristic that has the strongest correlation to their intentions is the Lack of Physical Cues. It was also found that while boys and girls do not differ significantly in their intentions to engage in cyberbullying behaviours, boys are significantly more likely to engage in risky Internet behaviours and are more likely to be victims of cyberbullying behaviours. The results from the main study, together with their responses to questions in the focus group discussions highlighted students’ empathy towards others’ feelings and “face”. On top of that, they were also afraid to post anything that could trigger backlash from other users in cyberspace. It appears that cultural considerations have a big impact on students’ attitudes and behaviours in cyberspace.
Date Issued
2015
Call Number
HV6773 Que
Date Submitted
2015